Visited
by Jeff
Image text: I hate when I read something like '... tension among the BASE jumpers nearly led to wingsuit combat ...', and I get excited because 'wingsuit combat' is underlined, only to find that it's just separate links to the 'wingsuit' and 'combat' articles.
This comic is a reference to how an internet browser will make the links of the pages that you have visited a different color than the links that you have not visited. In the case of wikipedia, they are blue for non visited and purple for visited. In this comic, Randall is ashamed of the pages he has visited, because with the color changes there is evidence of what he has done in the past.
So, I can't quite figure who who this fake article is supposed to be about, but the Macarena band is certainly from Dos Hermanas, Spain. So, it is quite possibly a made up article from Randall.
Cougars
by Jeff
Image text: If you're lying in bed tonight and you see yellow eyes glinting in your window, are you being stalked by a puma, a mountain lion, a panther, a catamount, or a cougar? Trick question--in North America, they're all names for the same species, Puma concolor! Isn't learning fun? Anyway, sleep tight!
In this comic, Randall is giving reason 58 why he should not have children. We see fictitious "father Cueball" talking about the wikipedia entry for the list of fatal cougar attacks in North America. Here's the link so you can look for yourself.
And the reason he should not have children is the fact that he can't resist himself when learning and sharing knowledge about the world (from wikipedia). Usually, when you have kids and you learn scary things, you should not share it with them.
Citogenesis
by Jeff
Image text: I just read a pop-science book by a respected author. One chapter, and much of the thesis, was based around wildly inaccurate data which traced back to ... Wikipedia. To encourage people to be on their toes, I'm not going to say what book or author.
This comic title is a combination of Citation and Genesis to come up with the new word "Citogenesis", which means the genesis of a citation in Wikipedia. As you can see, in the graph in Step 4, this can create a lot of misinformation, even outside of Wikipedia.
I have no idea what book is being referred to in the image text, does anyone have any ideas? Guesses?
Magic School Bus
by Jeff
Image text: At my OLD school, we used Microsoft Encarta 2005.
This comic is a reference to the American TV cartoon and book series "The Magic School Bus". In this cartoon, Ms. Frizzle and her class would learn about a certain topic and then get in their school bus which would then fly, shrink down or grow so they could learn about the topic in real life. For example, when learning about anatomy, they would shrink down and go inside a person's body to see how the body actually works.
The image text is a reference to Microsoft Encarta which is an old electronic encyclopedia.
Discovery
by Jeff
Image text: When advertisers figure this out, our only weapon will be blue sharpies and "[disputed]".
This comic is referencing the way that Wikipedia uses citations. Little blue numbers (which are links - which is why they are blue) are put in Wikipedia entries after some statement that is cited. Below the post are links to the information that is cited. The numbers are links to the citation section at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry.
As it says in the image text, the only way to show that you believe a statement to be false on Wikipedia is to put the [disputed] tag in blue after the statement. In the image text, the comic is suggesting that when all ads on billboards and in magazines uses the Wikipedia citation method in the comic, you could use a blue Sharpie (a very prevalent kind of permanent marker) to write [disputed] after the advertisers claims.
Also, don't believe everything you read with the Wikipedia citations until you go to the actual link and find out for yourself.
Extended Mind
by Jeff
Image text: Wikipedia trivia: if you take any article, click on the first link in the article text not in parentheses or italics, and then repeat, you will eventually end up at "Philosophy".
I'm a little late getting this post up, but I think you all can get the gist of it. When Wikipedia is down, everyone is considerably dumber. This comic, obviously takes that to the extreme.
Trust me when I tell you, if Wikipedia was down your explainxkcd explanations would be less explainy. (That's not a word, I know.)
The only Wikipedia outage I can find recently in the news is from March 2010.
Lamp
by Jeff
Image text: 'That was definitely not in my top three wishes.' 'Who said anything about YOUR wishes?'
Cueball happens upon a lamp. He rubs said lamp hoping that it is a magic lamp that contains a genie that will grant him 3 wishes. (see: Aladdin - the Disney movie or the fairy tale) The genie only appears after rubbing the lamp. But, after rubbing it, the lamp appears to ejaculate (linking you to wikipedia for full explanation). Cueball puts the lamp down in disgust in the fourth frame and they have the discussion in the image text.
Cueball: That was definitely not in my top three wishes.
Lamp: Who said anything about YOUR wishes?
It was clearly the lamp's hope that someone would happen upon it and think that it was a magic lamp that contained a genie that would grant wishes. Instead the rubbing causes the lamp to ejaculate, which was its goal all along.
Malamanteau
by Jeff
Image text: The article has twenty-three citations, one of which is an obscure manuscript from the 1490's and the other twenty-two are arguments on LanguageLog.
Malamanteau when in language, someone combines two words to create another different word. Perhaps, the most famous example of this is "misunderestimate" which was used by former US President George W. Bush.
However, "misunderestimate" might be more of a malapropism as it references in the comic because it was said as a mistake rather than a purposeful combination of two words. At least I hope it was a mistake...
Neologism is also defined as a new word that is created by combining two different words.
However, the word Malamanteau is itself a malamanteau because it is the combination of malapropism and portmanteau it is a neologism and a portmanteau. Which points then to the extreme confusion in the supposed Wikipedia article that this comic is showing.
I hope I made that more clear than more murky for you.
UPDATED: Probably more murky... There is some good discussion in the comments from people who know more about language than I ever will.
Anatomy Text
by Jeff
Image text: For many of the anatomy pictures on Wikipedia, I think this is actually not far from reality. They only look all formal and professional due to careful cropping.
In this comic, these two people are taking anatomy photos for Wikipedia in a TGI Fridays. Before putting them on Wikipedia, they are "carefully cropped" to make them look professional.
The comic is speculating about how Wikipedia anatomy photos are taken and that they are probably taken under much less professional circumstances than we are lead to believe.